Mairéad Hickey and Ella van Poucke studied together at the prestigious Kronberg Academy and have ever since sought opportunities to perform together. In this concert they are re-visiting two works they played together in Bantry over the last five years. Kodály’s Duo was begun in July 1914 when he was stranded at the Austrian border on the outbreak of War. Everything about this gripping work is both magnificent and strange, you can hear the towering mountains and the advent of War closing in as the composer rides roughshod over all established musical conventions creating fascinating challenges for these two young star performers. The Festival commissioned Finola Merivale’s Duo when she was composer in residence last autumn at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. The work’s title refers literally to how the pandemic is still sweeping across the world even we are hardly able to move. Schulhoff’s Duo was written during the Roaring Twenties, when all rules were being broken and Europe was trying vainly to forget its collective insanity. Schulhoff was always experimenting and exploring different forms of music-making, he was also a brilliant and much sought after pianist.